


The Loner That Wasn't

by KaSaPe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Keith's vlog aftermath, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaSaPe/pseuds/KaSaPe
Summary: Lance just wanted a fun bonding session with his friends. Of course Keith had to ruin it by leaving before it could even get started. But when things turn out to be a lot less fun than expected, Lance doesn't have it in him to blame Keith anymore. Now he has a new mission: to make sure that Keith knows he is appreciated.Or: the team watches Keith's vlog and tries to show him how much they love him. In their own very awkward ways.





	The Loner That Wasn't

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ANYTHING IN 4 MONTHS BUT BOY IF KEITH'S VLOG DIDN'T HIT ME RIGHT IN THE FEELS 
> 
> IT'S BEEN DAYS AND I'M STILL CRYING
> 
> L O V E T H E B O Y

_Oh heck yes._

Lance had a huge grin on his face as he skidded into the room and waved the recorder around. Pidge and Hunk barely batted an eye at him from where they sat on the ground and Keith kept quietly conversing with Allura. The only one that looked up to see what his hasty entrance was about was Shiro.

Clearing his throat, he more or less drew everyone’s attention to himself. Neither Pidge nor Hunk were especially fazed by it but he’d make do.

“Alright guys, I’m here to save the day. Who’s ready to get the show started?”

“Show?” Keith asked, blinking stupidly. His left eyebrow lifted in question as he shared a look with Allura. No one seemed excited in the least. How disappointing. Lance gave one drawn-out sigh and shook the recorder again.

“Yes, show. You know, the one we recorded just now?”

“But I thought they were simple vlogs to help future generations of paladins to adapt to their roles through getting to know us better?” Hunk asked. He had finally shifted his attention from the mice to Lance, something that Platt didn’t seem to appreciate. The tiny mouse tugged at Hunk’s finger, trying to get him to look down again.

Lance gestured at the tiny animal and sat down on the bench, redirecting Hunk’s eyes. Hunk gave an apologetic coo and picked the mouse back up.

Lance simply watched for a while, then drew his eyes up to Keith. The other paladin watched the mice too, a soft look on his face. So soft. Lance wondered if Keith had ever looked at him like that.

No. No, wait, he wouldn’t get distracted by Keith, that’s not what he came here for. Clearing his throat and willing the blush away from his face, he held up the recording again.

“See, Hunk, that’s where you’re wrong. That’s just what _Coran_ said. Let’s be real, did anyone here actually talk about anything that might help future generations of paladins?” A lot of guilty glances were his answer and he nodded, satisfied. “Thought so. However, we talked a lot about ourselves. This could be a prime bonding exercise, we could find out what everyone’s interested in and stuff,” he finished, very proud of himself.

“You already know what I’m interested in,” Pidge deadpanned. “And I’ll give you a hint: it’s not your bad jokes.”

“Hey! My jokes aren’t bad!” he complained. Luckily, one of the mice chose right that moment to tug at Pidge’s pants and get her attention back. It spared him from any further jabs at his pride. “Besides, none of us have anything better to do anyway. Training’s over for today and we’re all just sitting around, bored. Don’t even deny it, Hunk, you know it’s true.”

Hunk, who had already opened his mouth in protest, closed it again and shrugged. “I mean, kind of-”

“Great, so, you’re in. Everyone else too?” Lance raised his head to meet many exasperated but not exactly opposed faces. 

Alright! Perfect. Everyone was in. He could feel a broad grin stretching across his face when a familiar grumpy voice broke the silence again.

“Wait, you’re gonna watch them? Just like that?” Keith asked. Lance raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

“I mean, yeah? Why, do you want some space popcorn to go with it or what?”

“No, it’s just - I thought those recordings were for future generations. Not… not for _us_.”

Something about Keith’s voice sounded off. Lance couldn’t quite tell what it was but the inflection was all wrong. Frowning, he was about to call him out on it when Shiro beat him to it.

“Keith? Is everything alright?”

Keith shot him a quick look before uncrossing his arms and getting to his feet. “No, I’m just - I’m tired. I think I’ll pass this round. See you tomorrow, guys.”

What? No. No, no, no, no, no, this wasn’t happening. Not if Lance could help it. When Keith passed him to exit the room, Lance made a grab for his arm. He missed by just an inch and was left watching Keith’s back, distancing himself, leaving him behind.

Not again.

“Dude!” he called after him. Keith halted and half turned, giving him a questioning look. Lance pursed his lips and frowned. “Oh come on, it won’t take that long. Just a little bit of team bonding, your bed won’t run away. There’ll be plenty of time to brood on your own later.”

Keith’s face closed off and Lance instinctively knew that that had been the wrong thing to say.

“I’m just tired, Lance. Don’t watch my stuff without me.”

And then he was gone.

Staring a little forlornly at the empty hallway, Lance startled when a hand dropped onto his own shoulder. “Wha-”

“I’ll go check on him,” Shiro said. Before he could leave too, Lance quickly thrust the recorder in front of his face.

“Nuh-uh! Nope, you can’t leave now! He said he’s fine, he probably wants to be left alone right now. We just got you back, don’t you want to know what everyone else has been up to?”

Shiro stopped, seemingly torn between following Keith and listening to Lance but then he sighed and turned towards the room again. “Alright. Let’s go watch some videos.”

At least one victory today. Lance pushed the pain in his heart aside and handed Allura the recorder, watching her set everything up.

 

* * *

 

A few minutes later they had gone through all videos except Keith’s. They were piled over each other on the bench in the lounge - Lance had started out draped across everyone’s laps but Pidge had pushed him off two minutes into her video. In retrospect, he probably should have thought twice before poking fun at her lovestruck expression over Olkari tech while his shoulders were on her legs.

Apart from that, everything had gone perfectly though. He had been right, watching the videos had been a great bonding experience, everyone was in high spirits. It was nice to learn more about his friends, even if Lance had admittedly known most of it already. He felt closer to them, kind of; it made his mind wander back to the one person on the team he just couldn’t get a grip on.

Keith. Always Keith. If he was completely honest, his thoughts didn’t really need any extra prompting to circle back to the current black paladin. They never had but they especially didn’t _now_ \- now that they had grown closer, if only a little. Now that Keith was actually listening to him. Now that they were supporting each other, kind of.

He just… wanted to get to know him more. Was that such a bad thing?

Lance’s eyes fell back on the recorder.

“Hey guys,” he said casually, leaning his head back against Hunk’s legs to look up at the four people on the bench. “What do you think Keith’s is vlog about?”

“I’m calling Voltron,” Hunk replied without hesitation. “The mission, you know? Our training regimen. That sounds like something Keith would talk about.”

“Well, I’m saying it’s his knife,” Lance stated. Pidge snorted and waved a hand around.

“No way, it’s probably just full of simple facts about him and silence before he says that doing a recording is stupid and leaves.”

Allura opened her mouth, her mischievous expression clueing Lance in that he’s either going to love or hate her next words, when Shiro cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter. We are not watching Keith’s vlog. He didn’t want us to, that would be a betrayal of his trust.”

Great. And now Lance felt bad for wanting to know more about his crus- _teammate_. His eyes met Hunk’s that betrayed similar feelings.

“Uh, yes,” Allura piped up then. “Shiro is right, of course. We absolutely shouldn’t do that. Let’s all follow Keith’s example and go to bed early instead, we could need some rest.”

Hah, sure. As if she hadn’t been right on board with the idea of watching Keith’s entry just a few seconds ago.

...Lance quite liked his head though. He wanted to keep it, thank you very much. So no, he wouldn’t call her out on that.

Hunk, Pidge and Lance all exchanged a look as they came to a mutual understanding. “Y’know, yeah, I actually like the idea. I’m just gonna leave the recorder here so that we can watch Keith’s vlog tomorrow. With him.”

“Yep. And I’ll be going to bed. Allura’s right, rest is important,” Hunk chimed in, nodding profusely.

“Uh… I’m gonna head to bed soon, too. There’s something I want to check out first though, one of my programs should have just finished running through some... information.”

“Want me to help?” Hunk offered immediately. Pidge looked like she wanted to refuse at first but caught on just in time.

“Actually yes, that’d be great. Night, everyone! See you tomorrow!”

With these words, Hunk and Pidge left the lounge. Allura and Shiro called out some good night wishes and after placing the recorder in one of the drawers that disappeared into the walls, Lance left too. There was no way he could smuggle the recorder with him under Shiro’s watchful gaze. But if he could get Shiro to believe that he was patient enough to wait until tomorrow - not that Keith would allow them to watch his vlog tomorrow, Lance knew him better than that - then maybe they could get it after he had left the room.

Whistling innocently, Lance made his way towards the Green Lion’s hangar.

 

* * *

 

“Do you think he’s gone to bed by now?” Lance mused, his legs propped onto a box next to Pidge. Pidge absentmindedly swatted at them but obviously wasn’t really bothered by their presence.

“He might? I’m not sure, I don’t know everyone’s schedules, I’m usually asleep myself,” Hunk said. He had been fumbling around with some kind of scanner but lowered it now to look at Pidge. “What do you think?”

“What makes you think that I know when Shiro’s going to bed?”

“Your bedtime is later than all of ours,” Hunk answered. Pidge stopped and looked up, narrowing her eyes at his open expression. Then she sighed.

“Touché. What time is it?”

“Like 1:30am,” Lance said. “S’that late enough?”

“Should be. Gimme five minutes, then I’m ready to go.”

Lance sighed dramatically but didn’t protest. There was no way he could drag Pidge away from her laptop unless she agreed to it. Besides, the longer they waited, the higher was the chance that Shiro was already back in his room, sound asleep. They couldn’t afford to get caught, Shiro would slaughter them if he caught them 'invading Keith’s privacy'.

It wasn’t as if they were trying to do that though! They just wanted to get to know him, that was allowed, right? They were his friends, after all. There was nothing that Keith could tell strangers about that he couldn’t tell his friends, right? Especially Keith. The dude was so closed off, there was no way he poured his heart out to _strangers_.

Unless he didn’t expect the record to survive that long. But this was Altean tech, Keith had to have been aware that it wouldn’t corrupt easily. So really, if he had done the same as the others had done and just shared some fond memories… there was nothing to be ashamed of. 

“Alright, I’m ready, let’s go,” Pidge said suddenly. She snapped her laptop shut and stretched a little - Lance couldn’t resist poking fun at her.

“Getting old already? If you didn’t stay hunched in front of this screen for hours at a time maybe you’d be a little taller.”

Pidge shot him a vicious look as she picked up one of the tablets. “If you didn’t think about Keith’s hair for hours at a time maybe you’d be a little smarter.”

Never in his life had Lance jumped to his feet that fast. “I don’t do that! And I’m plenty smart already!”

“Uh-huh.”

“His hair is just very dumb! Who told him that it’s okay to have a mullet in this day and age?!”

“Uh-huh.”

Hunk snorted and patted Lance’s leg from where he was still on the ground. “You know, you’re kind of proving her point there.”

Incredible. Unbelievable. That Hunk would betray him like this- “You’re my best friend! We have to stick together, why are you doing this?!” Lance demanded, his voice shrill with fake offense. And maybe a little bit of honest offense. Because come on. They all knew about his crush already. Couldn’t they give it a rest for five minutes?

“No, I’m doing this _because_ I am your best friend. And as such, it is my responsibility to call you out when you are lying to yourself.”

“Uh, no, that’s Keith’s job-”

“Are you guys coming or what?” Pidge interrupted them. Both Hunk and Lance scrambled to catch up to where she was already half out of the door.

“Oh man, this is gonna be great,” Lance whispered once they were out in the hallways. The blue lights were dimmed down and, strangely enough, stayed that way even as they passed it. Well, Lance supposed that he knew now that had kept Pidge busy for an extra five minutes.

Sticking close to the walls just in case they had to hide quickly, the three of them advanced to the lounge. Hunk was sticking close to his back, nervously hovering above him but making no move to abort mission. He was probably just as curious about Keith’s vlog as Lance was. And there was no question that Pidge was - she led the group, always darting her head around corners before waving at them to follow.

Finally, they reached the doors to the lounge. The lights were off but Lance knew better than to assume that the air was clear from just that. There are just some things you learn from living with a huge family and sneaking around the house was definitely one of these things.

Pushing himself in front of Pidge and ignoring her quiet complaint, he pressed his ear against the door. Total silence. Alright. He gave a nod towards Pidge and she pressed a button on the pad she had brought with her.

The door opened with a silent _whoosh_. Nodding at the other two, Lance tiptoed into the lounge and made his way over to the drawer.

Score. The drawer opened and the record was still there. Apparently, they had managed to fool Shiro well enough for him to leave everything as it was.

“All good?” Pidge whispered from the door.

Lance smirked and whirled around, the recorder held high above his head. “Mission success,” he declared.

Hunk let out a clear breath of relief before relaxing and entering the room as usual. “Okay, phew. For a moment there I was totally worried that Shiro had rigged the drawer or something.”

“As if he knew enough about tech to do that,” Pidge said, rolling her eyes. Hunk frowned and followed her towards the couch.

“Yeah, it’s unlikely, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Or maybe the mice were on alert. Have we checked for the mice? Allura might be here any moment.”

“Relax, Hunk,” Lance drawled as he connected the recorder to the screen via cables. He had watched Allura do this just a few hours before, he knew what to do now. “It’s gonna be fine. We’re just gonna watch Keith’s recording, make fun of his awkward emo speech and leave again.”

“That’s not why you wanted to see his vlog and you know it,” Hunk said. Lance sighed and gave him a look.

“Can we give it a rest already? Is picking-on-Lance-day finally over?”

“It’s always picking-on-Lance-day, you make it too easy.” Pidge grinned cheekily. But before Lance could complain, she patted the couch between her and Hunk and Lance made his way over.

“Do you know how to turn down the volume?”

“Yep. Already done.”

“Then let’s do this.”

 

* * *

 

_“I’m Keith, the pilot of the black lion. ...what should I say? I’m a paladin, I fly the black lion. I- I said that already, see, this is why I’m bad at this! What else am I supposed to tell you?_

_Okay, um, I guess I’m part Galra._

_[...]_

_...I guess being part Galra is a big deal. Might explain why I was never really good at connecting with people._

_[...]_

_I still don’t understand why I wouldn’t just say ‘Voltron’! It’s- it’s so much faster. One person says it, right? Done! I say ‘Voltron’ and then the chant is over. It doesn’t have to be complicated!_

_I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I guess… I have a bit of a temper, so…_

_[...]_

_I don’t know why I’m that way. Maybe… I’m naturally untrusting because my mom left me? And so instead of accepting people into my life, I push them away before… they reject me. I guess I have some walls up._

_I’m- I’m out of here! Get me out of here, I’m out of here! I said I wouldn’t cry!”_

 

* * *

 

Silence. The recording cut out abruptly after Keith had left the chair, giving none of them time to recover from what he had just said.

It had started out so funny. Awkward and endearing, the way Keith was most of the time. They had elbowed each other and laughed at the Keith on screen, thinking they had figured out why he didn’t want them to see his recording. Then he had mentioned the chant and Lance had almost fallen off the couch laughing.

But then. Then something had shifted. From one moment to the next Keith had suddenly drawn back, avoiding looking at the camera. He had apologized for his temper, explained why he was standoffish at times - and had almost cried.

Hunk, Lance and Pidge sat on the couch, watching the now dark screen with wide eyes. Keith had almost _cried_.

“He’s…” Pidge started but then trailed off, as if she didn’t know what to say. Lance had troubles getting his bearings together too, he had never seen Keith this close to tears before.

And about what? About being afraid of getting rejected? About feeling like he couldn’t connect to people? But he was Keith, for god’s sake! The 'best pilot of his generation'! Shiro’s favorite! He was so much better at everything and he was afraid of _people?!_

...did that fear apply to them too?

“Oh man. Oh man, this is bad. Can we go to his room? I want to hug him right now, can this be a thing? Like, do you think that’s possible? Would he accept that?” Hunk asked.

“And tell him what? That we watched his recording?” Pidge replied, her voice weirdly high pitched. Finally Lance found a way to get his throat working again.

“What the heck? What was that?! Since when has he felt that way?”

“Probably always?” Hunk said. When Pidge and Lance directed their alarmed looks his way, he gave a helpless shrug. “I mean, he said it was because of his mom, right? And because of him being Galra? Then it’s been this way since we’ve known him.”

“I called him the loner,” Pidge said, distressed. Lance made a broken noise as he jumped to his feet.

“Think about how I feel! How often have I insulted him? Didn’t I say that I wouldn’t follow him anywhere? And just yesterday I called him emo!”

“Yeah but, to be fair, I think Keith’s actually pretty comfortable around you,” Hunk cut in. Hope bloomed in Lance’s heart as he looked at his best friend, the one that was always honest with him.

“You really think so?”

“I mean, yeah? You were the one that cheered him up when Shiro was gone, right? And he does seem to hang around you a lot, even now that Shiro’s back.”

Was that true? Did Keith hang around him more often than around the others? He desperately wanted to know, he _needed_ to know.

Not now though. Now wasn’t the time to indulge his… his stupid crush. They had to do something about Keith. How were they supposed to cheer him up?

“So… what are we gonna do?” Pidge voiced his thoughts. She sounded small and defeated, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. “Should we do something about it?”

“Well, obviously,” Lance said. “We can’t just leave him like this. He was about to cry.”

“What though? Does anyone here have any idea of what Keith likes?” Hunk asked.

Silence.

“Uh. Training?” Pidge suggested then.

“His… his knife?”

More silence. They were staring helplessly at each other, all at a loss of what to do. Should they just… walk up to Keith and tell him that they appreciated having him on the team?

No. No way. Lance felt embarrassed just thinking about it. But they had to show him that they appreciated him, loved him even, that they wanted him here-

All of a sudden, the door to the lounge rushed open. The three of them squeaked and jumped back before scrambling to get in front of the recording device as if hiding it would also hide the huge dark screen above them.

It was Allura. Allura stared at them, her eyes equally as wide as theirs were. None of them said anything for a while, then Lance cleared his throat and took a risk.

“Uh. So. Here for Keith?”

Her guilty look was all the answer they needed.

 

* * *

 

After Allura had seen the vlog it didn’t take them long to decide that they needed help. Yeah, maybe they shouldn’t have watched it - but if they hadn’t they would have still been in the dark about this! They had to make sure that Keith was… well, _Keith-like_ because he wanted to be like that and not because some part of him thought that he was a dispensable part of the team.

That hit a little too close to home for Lance.

He wouldn’t allow Keith to feel that way. Not _Keith_. Never.

So, help it was. And the only person that would be able to help them understand Keith better was…

“Who wants to knock?” Hunk asked weakly. Lance evaded his look and scuffed at the floor. From the corner of his eyes he could see that Pidge was fumbling with her glasses and Allura was keeping herself busy with her dress.

Great. None of them wanted to wake him up.

“Alright, okay, I’ll knock,” Pidge said suddenly. Lance perked up and gave her a wide grin, but before any words of thanks could leave his mouth she lifted her hand. “But I won’t talk. One of you guys has to do the explaining.”

“Wait, no, we never agreed to-”

But it was too late, she was already knocking. Not even three seconds later the door rushed open, revealing a slightly disheveled but very much awake Shiro.

Shiro blinked at them, confused.

“What are you-”

“Hi, Shiro!” Lance interrupted in a too high voice. He winced when Shiro’s eyes fell on him. It was now or never. “So, uh, we kind of need your help.”

More blinking. “With what?” After a quick look through the round, Shiro’s eyes returned to Lance, sharper than before. “Where’s Keith? Is something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing is wrong,” Allura was quick to assure. Then she trailed off, giving Lance a look that said ‘your turn again’. “It’s just…”

“Yeah, uh, this,” Lance said weakly as he lifted the recorder. For a moment Shiro just stared at the device as if he was unsure what he was looking at, then his eyes darkened.

“Did you-”

“Yes but! Hear me out! I know we maybe shouldn’t have done that without checking in with Keith before but what we found it is much more important!”

There was a deep sigh and Lance prayed that Shiro would believe him. He would accept a lecture later if it was really necessary but figuring out how to help Keith was his top priority for now. Luckily, Shiro seemed to have gotten the drift - he had probably come to the conclusion that if it wasn’t important they never would have told him at all.

...he wouldn’t be wrong about that. Anyway.

“What did you find out?” Shiro asked. The pained patience in his voice didn’t bypass Lance and he grinned nervously, shuffling his feet a little.

“Uh, maybe it’ll be easier to just show you? Because it’s like, kind of hard to describe…”

Shiro seemed torn for a moment but eventually his worry for Keith won over his apparent respect for his privacy and he followed them into the common room.

 

* * *

 

A little later it was decided that no, they couldn’t just leave things as they were.

Somehow, they would have to show Keith that he didn’t have to be afraid of getting rejected by them. That they liked him. That they were a team… a family.

A family that, unlike his biological one, would never abandon him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like the prologue or something? But there's a POV switch to Keith after this so I posted it anyway :D ~~also to motivate myself to keep writing because for some reason i have a very hard time with that right now~~  
>  If everything goes as planned the second part should be up within the week!!
> 
> Talk to me on [tumblr](http://keiths-stupid-mullet.tumblr.com/), I'm a nice person, promise^^


End file.
